In a time of universal deceit, the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell
®™©
Is Self Defense - Biblical
Truth?
If you really
want to understand the truth’ about guns, the law, and the Second Amendment,
then you’ will want to read this rather lengthy article my friend. If you do, you will know and understand what God’
has to say about the subject.
By de Andréa, Opinion Editorialist
for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’:
for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’:
Published April 16, 2015
"Thou Shalt Not Kill"…
I am not only a student of law, specifically U.S.
Constitutional law, but I am also a student of the Bible and Biblical law. And I can assure you my friend that the Sixth
Command does not state ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’.
Written in the Hebrew language it correctly translates to “You
Shall Not Murder”. So the rare
necessity of killing someone in the interest of preserving one’s own life or
the life of another innocent person, is not a violation of any law including
Biblical law. Moreover the Architects
and Framers of U.S. Constitutional law understood this completely. I can only make the deduction that by
abolishing God in America we have also abolished ‘His law’ and common sense.
God recorded
the Sixth Commandment in Exodus 20:13: “You shall not murder,” because God highly values life and He
wants us to do so as well.
Unlike Satan’s demonic Quran which commands Muslims to kill the Kaffaar (non-Muslims).
God tells us in the Bible to choose life: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today
against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing;
therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live”
(Deuteronomy 30:19). “For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the
Lord. But he who [a]sins against me injures himself; all those who hate me love
death.” Proverbs 8:35-36
On the other
hand the Quran, Satan’s book of Evil, Sahih International 47:4 says… “So
when you meet those who disbelieve, strike their necks until, when you have
inflicted slaughter upon them, then secure their bonds, and either confer favor
afterwards or ransom them until the war lays down its burdens. That is the
command. And if Allah had willed, He
could have taken vengeance upon them Himself, but He ordered armed struggle to
test some of you by means of others. And those who are killed in the cause of
Allah - never will He waste their deeds.”
Gods Bible teaches us to
worship life because God does. But
Satan’s Quran teaches us to worship death, because Satan does.
*********
That
being said, the underlying argument for gun control seems to be that the availability of the gun is what causes violent crime. By
extension, the availability of any weapon would have to be viewed as a cause of
crime. What does the Bible say about such a view? What I usually suggest is
that we start at the beginning, or at least very close to the beginning-in
Genesis 4. In this chapter we read about the first murder. Unlike his brother Able, Cain had offered an unacceptable
sacrifice, and Cain was upset that God insisted that he do the right thing.
Cain
decided to kill his brother rather than get right with God, sort of like we do
today. There were no’ guns available, although there may have
been some kind of a knife. Whether it was a knife or a large rock, the Bible
does not say. The point is, the evil in Cain's heart was the cause of the
murder, not the availability of the murder weapon. God's response was not to
ban rocks or knives, or any other inert object, but to banish the murderer.
Later (see Genesis 9:5-6) God instituted capital punishment, but never said a
word about banning weapons.
Did Christ Teach Pacifism?
Many
people, Christians included, assume that Christ taught pacifism. They cite
Matthew 5:38-39 for their proof. In this verse Christ said: “You
have heard not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right
cheek, turn the other to him also.”
Context is always important: The Sermon on the Mount from which this passage is taken deals
with righteous personal conduct. In the passage, Christ is
clearing up a confusion that had led people to think that conduct proper for
the civil government-that is, taking vengeance-was also proper for an
individual.
Get Bradlee Dean's “My War”, a DVD series that takes on the issues of today and gives
understanding and clarity of who the Architects of our Constitution
and our Founders were, as well as their true intentions when they established
our Judeo-Christian nation
Even
the choice of words used by Christ indicates that He was addressing a
confusion, or a distortion, that was commonplace. Several times in the rest of
the Sermon on the Mount Christ used this same “you
have heard it said” figure of speech to straighten out
misunderstandings or falsehoods being taught by the religious leaders of the
times.
By
contrast, Christ's use of the phrase “it is written” when He was
appealing to the Scriptures for authority (for example, see Matthew 4 where on
three occasions during His temptation by Satan, Christ answered each one of the devil's lies or
misquotes from the Scripture with the words: “it is written”).
To
further underscore the point that Christ was correcting the religious leaders
on their teaching that “an eye for an eye” applies to private revenge, consider
that in the same Sermon, Christ strongly condemned false teaching: “Whoever
therefore breaks one of the commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called
least in the kingdom of heaven…” (Matthew 5:19). Clearly, then, Christ was not teaching
something different about self-defense than is taught elsewhere in the Bible.
Otherwise, He would be contradicting Himself for He would now be teaching men
to break one of the commandments.
The
Bible distinguishes clearly between the duties of the
civil magistrate (the government) and the duties
of an individual. Namely, God has
delegated to the civil magistrate the administration of
justice. Individuals have the responsibility of protecting their lives from
attackers. Christ was referring to this distinction in the Matthew 5 passage.
Let us now examine in some detail what the Scriptures say about the roles of
government and of individuals. Both the Old and New Testaments teach individual
self-defense, even if it means taking the assailant's life in certain
circumstances.
Self Defense in the Old Testament
Exodus
22:2-3 tells us “If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies,
there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there
shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has
nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”
One
conclusion which can be drawn from this is that a threat to our life is to be
met with lethal force. During the day, presumably because we can recognize and
later apprehend the thief if he escapes, we are not to kill him in a non-life-threatening
circumstance.
In
Proverbs 25:26 we read that “A righteous man who falters before the
wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.” Certainly we would
be faltering before the wicked if we chose to be unarmed and unable to resist
an assailant who might be threatening our life.
Trusting God
Another
question asked by Christians is “Doesn't having
a gun imply a lack of trust that
God will take care of us?” Indeed, God will take care of us. He has also told us that if
we love Him, we will keep His commandments. (John 14:15) Those who trust God, work
for a living, knowing that 1 Timothy 5:8 tells us “But if anyone does not provide
for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith
and is worse that an unbeliever.” For a man not to work, yet expect to
eat because he was “trusting God” would actually be to defy God. Also a good
lesson against Socialism or the redistribution of other peoples wealth.
King
David wrote in Psalm 46:1 that God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble. This did not conflict with praising the God “Who
trains my hand for war, and my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1). The
doctrine of Scripture is that we prepare and work, but we trust the outcome to
God.
Those
who trust God should also make adequate provision for their own defense and wellbeing
even as we are instructed in the passages above. For a man to refuse to provide
adequately for his and his family's defense would be to defy God. There is an
additional concern to taking the position that “I don't need to arm myself. God
will protect me.”
At
one point, when Satan was tempting Jesus in the wilderness, he challenged Jesus
to throw himself off the top of the temple. Satan reasoned that God's angels
would protect him. Jesus responded: “It is written again, 'You shall not tempt
the Lord your God.'” (Matthew 4:7) It may seem pious to say that one is
trusting in God for protection, and we all must, but it is tempting God if we
do not take the measures that He has laid out for us in the Bible.
The Role of Government
The
Bible records the first murder in Genesis 4 when Cain killed his brother Abel.
God's response was not to register rocks or impose a background check on those
getting a plough, or whatever it was that Cain used to kill his brother.
Instead, God dealt with the criminal. Ever since Noah the penalty for murder
has been death.
Nowhere
in the Bible does God make any provision for dealing with the instruments or
weapons of crime. He always focuses on the consequences for an individual of
his actions. Heaven and hell only
applies to people, not to things.
Responsibility only pertains to people, not to
guns.
Resisting
an attack is not to be confused with taking vengeance which is the exclusive
domain of God (Romans 12:19). This has been delegated to the civil magistrate,
who, as we read in Romans 13:4, “is God's minister to you for good. But if
you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's
minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices
evil.”
Private
vengeance means one would stalk down a criminal after one's life is no longer
in danger as was just demonstrated on a video by a police officer shooting a man in the back as he ran away, as opposed to defending oneself against imminent death during an
attack. It is this very point that has been confused by Christian pacifists who
would take the passage in the Sermon
on the Mount about turning the
other cheek (which prohibits private vengeance) into a command to violate
another command not to falter before the wicked.
Let’s
return for a moment to the Sixth Commandment that tells us “Thou shall not murder,” as
I sated at the beginning of this article. In the chapters following, God gave
to Moses many of the situations which require a death penalty. God clearly has
not told us never to kill. He has told us not to murder, which means we are not
to take an innocent life. Consider also that the civil magistrate is to be a
terror to those who practice evil. This passage does not in any way imply that
the role of law enforcement is to prevent crimes or to protect individuals from
criminals. The magistrate is a minister to serve as “an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices
evil.” (Romans 13:4)
This
point is reflected in the legal doctrine of the United States. Repeatedly,
courts including the U.S Supreme Court has held that the government has no
responsibility to provide individual security. One case (Bowers v. DeVito) put
it this way: “there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against
being murdered.” Why is that? Because you as a human being already have
the right and responsibility to protect yourself. The State is not your mother nor your God.
Self Defense in the New Testament
The
Christian pacifist may try to argue that God has changed His mind from the time
that He gave Moses the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 or the provision for
justifiably killing a thief in Exodus 22. But the writer of Hebrews makes it
clear that this cannot be, because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today
and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). In the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi
records God's words this way: “For I am the Lord, I do not change”
(Malachi 3:6). Paul was referring to the unchangeability of God's Word when he
wrote to Timothy that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of
God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Clearly, Paul viewed
all Scripture, including the Old Testament, as useful for training Christians
in every area of life.
We
must also consider what Christ told his disciples in his last hours with them: “…But
now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a sack; and he who
has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one” (Luke 22:36. Keep in mind that the sword was the finest
offensive weapon available to and individual soldier – the equivalent then of a
military rifle such as a M16, AK47, a Mac10 or an AR15 or even a 50 caliber
sniper rifle is today.
The
Christian pacifist may ignorantly object at this point that only a few hours
later, Christ rebuked Peter who used a sword to cut off the ear of Malchus, a
servant of the high priest in the company of a detachment of troops. Let us
read what Christ said to Peter in Matthew 26:52-54: “Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword
will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father,
and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” How
then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?
It
was not the first time that Christ had to explain to the disciples why He had
come to earth. To fulfill the Scriptures, the Son of God had to die for the sin
of man since man was incapable of paying for his own sin apart from going to
hell. Christ could have saved His own life, but then believers would have lost
their lives forever in hell. These things only became clear to the disciples
after Christ had died and raised from the dead and the Spirit had come into the
world at Pentecost (see John 14:26).
While
Christ told Peter to “put your sword in its place” He clearly did not say get rid of it. That would have contradicted
what he told the disciples only hours before. Peter's sword was to protect his
own mortal life and others from danger. His sword was not needed to protect the Creator of the
universe and the King of kings.
Years
after Pentecost, Paul wrote in a letter to Timothy “But if anyone does not provide
for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith
and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). This passage applies to
our subject because it would be absurd to buy a house, furnish it with food and
facilities for one's family, and then refuse to install locks and buy a gun to provide
the means to protect the family and property. Likewise it would be absurd not
to take, if necessary, the life of a night-time thief to protect the members of
the family (Exodus 22:2-3). And this by
the way is why I say that if anyone comes to my door and ask for food I will
share what I can ‘with him’. But if anyone comes to my door to steal what I
have set aside for my own sustenance then he will be met with a Mossberg
400.
In
the light of all we have seen the Scriptures teach to this point, can we argue
that if we were able to save another's life from an attacker by shooting the
attacker with our gun that we should “turn the other cheek instead?”
The Bible speaks of no such right. It only speaks of our responsibilities in
the face of an attack-as individual creatures made by God, as householders or
as neighbors.
National Blessings and Cursing’s
The
Old Testament also tells us a great deal about the positive relationship
between righteousness, which exalts a nation, and self-defense. It makes clear that in times of national
rebellion against the Lord God, the rulers of the nation will reflect the
spiritual degradation of the people and the result is a denial of God's
commandments, an arrogance of officialdom, disarmament and oppression.
For
example, the people of Israel were oppressed during the time of the rule of the
Judges. This occurred every time the people apostatized. Judges 5:8 tells us
that, “They chose new gods; then there was war in the gates; not a shield or
spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel.”
Consider
Israel under Saul: The first book of Samuel tells of the turning away of Israel
from God. The people did not want to be governed by a God they couldn’t see;
they wanted to be ruled by a king like the pagan. Similar to what has happened in America with
the Executive Tyranny of Obama and the God-hating nations around us. Samuel
warned the people what they were getting into - the curses that would be upon
them if they persisted in raising up a king over themselves and their families.
Included in those curses was the raising up of a standing, professional army
which would take their sons and their daughters for aggressive unnecessary wars
(I Samuel 8:11).
This
curse is not unknown to us in the United States, what we have accomplished by
the Middle Eastern and North African wars is to do nothing but to destabilize
the entire area. Saul carried out all the judgments that Samuel had warned the
people about. His buildup of a standing army has been repeated in the U.S., and
not just in terms of the military, but also the 700,000 federally militarized full-time
police officers from all levels of government including the so-called DHS, the
Department of Homeland Security. Saul was the king that the Israelites wanted
and got. Like Obama he was beautiful in the eyes of the world but a disaster in
the eyes of the Lord. Saul did not trust God. He rebelled against His form of
sacrifice unto the Lord. Saul put himself above God. He was impatient. He
refused to wait for Samuel because God's way was taking too long. Saul went
ahead and performed the sacrifice himself, thus violating God's commandment. (And,
incidentally, also violating the abused God-ordained separation of the duties of
church and of state!)
Thus
was the kingdom lost to Saul. And, it was under him that the Philistines were
able to defeat the Jews and put them into bondage. So great was the bondage
exerted by the Philistines that “Now there was no blacksmith to be found
throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, 'Lest the Hebrews
make them swords or spears.' But all the Israelites went down to the
Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his
sickle;…So it came about, on the day of battle, that there was neither sword
nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and
Jonathan…” (1 Samuel 13:19-20; 22-23).
Today, the same goals of the
Philistines would be carried out by an oppressor like Islam and/or Obama, who would
ban guns from the land. The sword of today is the handgun, rifle or shotgun
which the oppressive government is doing everything they can to ban and
illegally disarm the people. The sword control of the Philistines is today's
gun control of a government that wishes to ultimately control the people.
It
is important to understand that what happened to the Jews at the time of Saul
was not unexpected according to the sanctions spelled out by God in Leviticus
26 and Deuteronomy 28. In the first verses of those chapters, blessing are promised to a
nation that keeps God's laws. In the long second parts of
those chapters, the curses are spelled out for a nation that comes under judgement for
is rebellion against God. Deuteronomy 28:47- 48 helps us understand the reason for Israel's
oppression by the Philistines during Saul's reign:
Because
you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the
abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord
will send against you, in hunger, (example: the drought in California and the
severe killer cold in the northeast) in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of
all things; because of the poor economy, and He will put a yoke of iron on your
neck until He has destroyed you. If you think things will get better without a
turnaround to God you would be wrong, wrong, wrong, my friend. America started its downhill slide as soon as
the Bible was removed from the schools, prayer was removed from government, and
Gods Commandments were removed from the Courts and the attack on the
Constitution became a new sport.
The
Bible provides examples of God's blessing upon Israel for its faithfulness.
These blessings included a strong national defense coupled with peace. A clear
example occurred during the reign of Jehoshaphat. 2 Chronicles 17 tells of how
Jehoshaphat led Israel back to faithfulness to god which included a strong
national defense. The result: ”And
the fear of the Lord fell on all the kingdoms of the lands that were around
Judah, so that they did not make war against Jehoshaphat” (2 Chronicles
17:10).
The
Israelite army was a militia army which came to battle with each man bearing
his own weapons-from the time of Moses, through the Judges, and beyond. When
threatened by the Midianites, for example, “So Moses spoke to the people, saying, 'Arm
some of yourselves for the war, and let them go against the Midianites to take
vengeance for the Lord on Midian'” (Numbers 31:3).
Again,
to demonstrate the Biblical heritage of individuals bearing and keeping arms,
during David's time in the wilderness avoiding capture by Saul, “David
said to his men, 'Every man gird on his sword.' So every man girded on his
sword, and David also girded on his sword” (Samuel 25:13).
Finally,
consider Nehemiah and those who rebuilt the gates and walls of Jerusalem. They
were both builders and defenders, each man-each servant-armed with his own
weapon:
Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built (Nehemiah 4:17-18).
THE BOTTOM LINE: In Conclusion, the wisdom of
the framers of the Constitution is absolutely consistent with the lessons of
the Bible. Instruments of defense should be dispersed throughout the nation,
not concentrated in the hands of the central government. In a Godly country,
righteousness governs each man through the Holy Spirit working within. The
government has no cause to want a monopoly of force; the government that
desires such a monopoly is a threat to the lives, liberty and property of its
citizens. The assumption that only danger can result from people carrying guns is
used to justify the government monopoly of force. The notion that the people
cannot be trusted to keep and bear their own arms informs us that ours, like
the time of Solomon, may be one of great riches but is also a time of peril for
a free people. If Christ is not our King, we shall have a dictator like Obama to
rule over us, just as Samuel warned.
For
those who think that God treated Israel differently from the way He will treat
us today, please consider what God told the prophet Malachi: “For I am the
Lord, I do not change…” (Malachi 3:6).
When
our forefathers wrote the Constitution of the United States, consciously or
unconsciously they followed the Israeli system of the right of every man to
keep and bear arms. [The Second Amendment] was patterned after the Israeli
method: when every able bodied man capable of bearing arms and who might be
called upon by the nation for military duties to defend his country, his life,
liberty and freedom was thus able and prepared to take his place in the defense
of the people.
Tyranny, as a rule, arises from within
a nation when the government has been captured by men who would use their
acquired power to oppress the people. These facts were known to the framers of
the constitution, hence they recognized the need and right of citizens to keep
and bear arms in order to insure real and lasting liberty. God in His
wisdom…made it a fundamental law in the land that every man should be a part of
the military forces of the nation-keeping his arms and equipment in his own
possession.
In
America, the right of citizens to keep and bear arms is fundamental in
preserving true freedom, so much so that subversive forces in sundry and subtle
ways first move to disarm the citizens of a nation which they later plan to
dominate. We have witnessed such a move in the past while states which have
already passed laws violating Article II of our Constitutional Rights did so
under the pretext of disarming the criminal. The states which have violated
this fundamental principle of the protection of its citizens against armed
violence have not only failed to reduce crime but have contributed to the
increase in violence and crime. The criminal, who by the way never disarms,
knows he is dealing with law-abiding unarmed citizens. Only criminals, not honest
men fear an armed, law-abiding civilian population.
Never give up your God or your arms unless you are ready to
give up your freedom and prosperity.
It’s the truth, and it’s what works my friend…
Thanks for listening – de Andréa
If you agree please pass on this article to everyone on
your email list. It may be the only
chance for them to hear the truth.
Copyright © 2014 by Bottom
Line Publishing, All Rights Reserved - Permission to reprint in whole or
in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
Disclaimer - The writer of
this blog is not responsible for the language used in links to referenced
articles as source materials. Thank you – de Andréa
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